Your choices for background music in these videos are perfect. Like every single song you've used is one I've already had in my own Playlist since I first heard them. You even got music from Sonny Boy!! like fr that anime was so underrated that I thought I wouldn't find another soul who used its OST in a video! Now I really want to see what your music playlist looks like!
The best part of Noita is the massive payoff when you do get powerful. There is basically no cap on how powerful you can get, but no matter how strong you get you still have to be careful of getting turned into a sheep and dying. Also there are two ways to gain the ability to edit wands anywhere, and you do need to edit your wands to fit the situation in certain endgame areas.
I mean you CAN make a wand that is essentially "one size fits all", but they are either hella dangerous, hella complex, both or just suck. I'd say that noita IS about thinking dynamically, as in it forces you to cook up things with what you have, but rather than forcing you to do it on the fly it allows for respite to organise you things. This makes most of the playthroughs rather unique in their own ways, which in turn keeps the game fresh. The only bland part(spell wise) is the "early game", since you lack the spells to actually do anything more interesting than a glorified machine gun or a shotgun and since you are most vulnerable in the early game that's where most of the early expirementing would take place, so imagine a lot of people get turned off by it, without actually feeling the power and charm of the system.
" There is basically no cap on how powerful you can get, but no matter how strong you get you still have to be careful of getting turned into a sheep and dying." The best games teach us lessons like these, that can be used in real life too.
If it takes half the game to find the fun for your particular style of playing, that game isn't worth playing. It's the "The show really picks up by episode 300" of video games. Not saying Noita is bad or unfun, just that it's not necessarily for everyone and that's perfectly okay. It doesn't have to be.
Noita literally makes you a wizard. You aren’t just some faker casting someone else’s spells, you’re making your own spells to use. And 80% of those spells backfire horribly and kill you, just like real magic should
Maybe I should give crosscode a second try. From what I gleaned from this video I made the mistake of trying to play the game before unlocking any good abilities, and not progressing past the first few zones before coming to the conclusion that its boring and bad.
@@peikkeinanen5064your mileage will probably vary depending on how much you like the puzzles tbh. I loved the emphasis on puzzles but I can see a lot of people hating this game for it.
A tried and true wizard game is Mages of Mistralia. A short but incredibly sweet experience in which you mix spells and elements to solve puzzles and kill stuff, cute story and artstyle. It's nothing crazy but I really enjoyed it and it even got a bit difficult in certain parts since I started hard mode immediately.
It's easily my favourite for building spells, the sheer amount of control you have is unmatched. My only complaint is there is very little of the game left once you have everything unlocked, and I'd love more of an opportunity to continue experimenting and designing spells. It really needs a post-game with some new challenges to play with your abilities more. Also, not sure how accurate this may be since all the developers socials have been silent for years, but I saw a leak indicating a potential sequel; "Echoes of Mystralia" was apparently trademarked by the company a couple of months ago.
Never thought of Crosscode as a wizard game, but that totally makes sense. It's one of my favorite games ever (might help that I liked the story and puzzles) and I can confirm the combat definitely feels amazing, like if Wizard of Legend spaced out the big attacks with a sp meter instead of cooldowns
CrossCode is one of the absolute best games... That'll I'll probably never play again because it takes SO LONG TO COMPLETE HOLY MOTHERFUCK... I dumped 50 HOURS into it and I'm barely HALFWAY DONE. And I'm so torn on this, because at very least a good quarter of that runtime is all because of the incredibly hard dungeons. And when you get through them, you feel a huge sense of accomplishment, but damn it... SO long.
@@arnox4554 There are accecibility sliders in the options with the title "the game was designed to be this difficult, but if it prevents you from having fun, here are some sliders". + mods can add even better controls over this (yes, there mods for CC).
@@arnox4554 You only give up when you drop the game for good IMO. When devs themsevles give you the option and say "yeah, go for it, as long as you have fun", I see no reason not to try it. Speaking from experience, I have a pretty shit reaction time so I struggled with puzzles, but lowering the puzzle speed (and not even by much) did wonders for me and let me finish the game.
@@arnox4554 the game has very good replay value once you unlock ng+ It urns all those achievements you got into game modifiers that can make it easier or harder. I was able to blast through the game in less than 10 hours with a few on.
Noita, is a spell builder rogue like. You don't just randomly discover spell combos, you craft them and try them out and see if they even work at all. Very cool.
I actually love how in-depth Noita's wand system is, maybe that has something do with being a programmer, but crafting the perfect wand to take advantage of placing spells and modifiers in the correct order is very satisfying.....also Crosscode is GOAT
Noita is an unironic masterpiece. It’s the single best game I’ve ever played and I’m constantly discovering more and more. Anyone reading this who hasn’t played Noita HAS TO. I cannot emphasise how incredibly good it is
@@woahmamaawoogahonkahonka really? I mean I had it. But what's so good? And can you explain in dumb terms why there's a few seconds b4 I can use a spell?
@@HassanAhmed-rf9xr I think Noita is a masterpiece because of the sheer depth of the game - it’s one of the few games where, with the tools you have, you can truly do *anything* limited to what your computer can handle. There’s thousands of hours worth of content and that’s not even an exaggeration. It’s truly incredible. A few seconds before spells casting is an odd problem, but I have a few reasons as to why it happens. If you hover your mouse over the wand, you’ll see all of them have a “cast delay” and “recharge time” stat. After you fire a spell in your wand, you have to wait to fire the next one. The amount of time you have to wait is the cast delay. However, once you’ve cast all of the spells in your wand once, you have to wait for the recharge time (you may have to wait for the cast delay if it’s longer than the recharge time but ignore that for now.) So, it may be that - the wand you picked has a very long cast delay or recharge time. You can check up the top right under your stat bars to see if your wand is recharging or delayed, or you can click again and if it shakes and makes a sound, you can’t fire immediately. However, your cast delay and recharge time might be very low. If you hover over your spells, you can see most will add or remove cast delay or recharge time - you might have accidentally stuck a very high delay spell on the wand. If none of that helps, check the mana max and mana charge speed on your wand. Mana charge speed is how much mana you regain per second, and mana max is the maximum amount of mana you can have. Each spell requires mana - you can hover over the spell to see how much. So, what may have happened is you cast the spell, it consumes a LOT of your mana. Say you have 100 mana and 10 charge speed, for example, and a spell which consumes 100 mana. When you left click, the wand will immediately be set to zero mana, fire the spell, and then start to charge mana again. Obviously 100/10 is 10 - so it will be a full 10 seconds before you’re able to cast the spell again because you don’t have enough mana. So, overall, two things might have gone wrong - your wand has bad stats, or your computer can’t handle Noita. I doubt it’s the second one because I have an ancient laptop with awful specs but it still chugs along okay. The game is in slow motion, but at 60fps.
I played this game called Mages of Mystralia. The spell system is really intuitive and VERY complex, to the point where you can exponentially increase your attack power with like 4 pieces
@@BrunoMaricFromZagreb each spell you create has this hexagonal grid, and there are spell components that each do a very simple thing, but the way they are placed on the grid and which components they are attached to determine how the spell works. It gets even deeper with triggers, in which a spell can trigger another spell and so on until you run out of mana. Check the game out, it’s a really cool concept and it’s probably not that expensive.
I recently finished a Skyrim modding project to fix the game's master spells because it doesn't matter how impressive your two-handed fiery explosion spell is if it's only effective against skeevers. I ended up overhauling the existing ones and building from scratch another 5 master spells, plus 10 extra expert-level spells. Thing is, I ended up looking into other games with spells and magic for ideas on what the new spells could do and how they could act. Magika and Magika 2 were a god damn goldmine of magic inspiration. So was Electroblob's Wizardry, the best Minecraft magic mod since Thaumcraft.
The witchcraft mod for Minecraft was also a really immersive magic experience there was a lot of nuance with the magic and in a lot of cool fashions. Like it had diverse potions, wands with spells you had to study and practice to improve on, ritual casting, sacrificial casting, voodoo like poppets, magical flora and fauna you had to learn how to live/deal with, interdimensional planes of existence, and honestly more I am probably forgetting or just didn't figure out about. It was a really cool mod it's a shame it isn't updated for the modern versions.
That sounds pretty chill. I always wanted the Bethesda games to have good spellcasting, but I was always rather disappointed. Never played Arena or Daggerfall, but I remember in Morrowind you had to be specific race/birthsign combos to even have a Magicka pool high enough to do cast more than like 2-3 spells without needing potions or sleep, in Oblivion all the creatures leveling up with you meant that eventually you'd need 40-50+ castings of the vanilla spells to kill them, and in Skyrim the master spells were just so disappointing...... Also hated how in Oblivion your master Illusionist couldn't charm simple bandits once you leveled over 25, so if you wanted to feel like an actual badass wizard you had to cheese the class skills so you'd never level past a certain range.
The separation of gameplay elements in Noita that you mentioned is actually what I love most about the game. As someone who isn't very good at performing combos or just doing complex inputs on the spot, the ability to plan out exactly how an attack is going to work in advance and only having to press down to a single button to use it is really helpful. It's also allows for the satisfaction of optimizing your wands beyond reason with the knowledge you've gained through repeated playthroughs or through scouring the wiki and UA-cam.
@@healgoth Well, first of all, it's not ridiculously hard if you play alone, compared to Magicka 2, and the main reason I would like to give you is that you have just much more freedom in casting spells. Now, it's been a veeeery long time since I played Magicka 2, but what I do remember is that there was a delay imposed on you that prevented you from spamming magicks. In my opinion, what made Magicka *shine* in the first place was how much you could exploit the game and the sheer chaotic nature of it. This is something that's been significantly toned down in the sequel. In addition (and don't take my word for it, actually, since I barely even remember it), I believe the story and the humor in the sequel were of an inferior quality compared to the original. I may be wrong, though To this day, of the two, the only game I replayed *multiple* times was the first Magicka.
@@healgoth - I second their recommendation. Magicka the original is a far superior game experience, including with friends, despite having a few goofy physics bugs. The magic system is less balanced but more robust, you can cast spells faster thanks to less input delay (some people made input scripts for the original, which is scummy in PvP mode, but the enforced delay is really annoying), the story is better (and the M2 storyline picks up after it, so that would make no sense without it anyway), the voice acting is better, the comedy is better, and the game is peppered with references to various movies and games with secret items hidden around the maps and some story beats. The first game also has multiple DLC bundles for added content that are quite good, and PvE arenas where you can fight against waves of baddies with up to three friends. I highly, highly recommend Magicka 1, and after you play that, if you liked it, well, maybe try 2 I guess. It's not the worst, but it's a pale imitation of the original. The best form of Magicka though was Wizard Wars: the separate PvP arena game, which originally used a capture-point and respawn ticket system with fairly small maps so you could always quickly get back into the fight, but which died out after they added and heavily pushed in favor of a DotA-style 3-lane PvE for XP game mode...
@@healgothsheer amount of content for one. Magicka 1 was about 10-16 (45 completionist) hours of gameplay compared to Magicka 2’s 6-10 (33 completionist) and the side quests and completionist content were also just a lot more substantive. With Magicka 2, you kind of breeze through it and then grind away at the various levels so you can unlock easy mode or other nothingburger setting options. Plus an absolute shitload of DLC.
Crosscode is the result of someone looking at jrpg’s and saying “I want to do that combat but in real time and me doing it.” And then they decided to keep all the other parts of jrpg’s too.
i get how you feel about noita, its just got a really steep learning curve. once you get past it tho shite starts going crazy. definitely has the best wand building out of any wizard game
@@MeatyZeeg Hilariously this is the reason I like Noita. I like how you find your 2million DPS wand, your infinite healing and infinite terrain destruction and become an unkillable God, making the game completely trivial. I like it because thematically, the game is punishing you for using your knowledge (probably from reading the wiki) to become unnecessarily powerful by making the game become boring
@@MeatyZeeg I mean for just winning the game / winning the game with more orbs this is all it boils down to. But there is like the whole tree of achievements to do which requires a shit ton of other stuff :)) and to just beat the game all you need is invis or a bunch of black holes it's not that hard
When it comes to the critique of Noita about not being able to experiment with spells on the fly, I honestly forgot that was the case because I've always been playing the game with a mod that gives your character the perk that lets you edit wands all the time anywhere. It makes the game a lot more enjoyable for me personally.
Theres a game called Magicmaker (its one word not two) you should try, its kinda like magicka 2 except 2d and with a unique artstyle. It makes you think of the spells you make as a puzzle to figure out what best fits your quest Edit: ok upon watching more of the video i would say magicmaker is closer to noita in terms of spell building, but less unforgiving, its been a while since i played it but i think it was more clear and consistent on what you should aim for with your spells, plus the levels arent super long and no permadeath makes you feel less bad about not having some kind of optimal build
magicmaker is an absolute gem, and still the best "build your own spells" game on the market afaik. 100% recommend this little game, I play it again every year or two.
Honestly with this much dedication, I’m willing to make you the game with the magic system you want lmao. Going to graduate in 2 months with my CS degree and I’m going to work in the game industry so it’ll be good experience.
I like your takes on magic games. Prioritizing flow, agency, understanding over unlocking, and by having new and unique encounters with enemies making you have to think outside the box is a great way to sum up a good magic game. I know there’s also the combo’s you can do but I can’t fully understand how those impact game feel.
For Noita theres a very commonly used mod, "edit wands anywhere". Its just one of the perks you can get in the game, but its on by default. it really does make the game worth playing IMHO
Also the perk is given to you by default at the start in Nightmare mode runs, along with 3 random wands (on top of the 2 you start with) and 3 random perks
I expected Hogwarts legacy to not be that great for the simple fact that magic in the movie wasn't the greatest thing either. I mean. The combat between Voldemort and Harry Potter was Voldemort screaming avada kedavra and poiting a thunder spell at Harry and Harry screaming Expllelliarmus and poiting a thunderous spell at Voldemort. That was it. On the other hand if I am ever gonna find a game with magic as cool as The Owl House or Hunter Hunter I am gonna sell my kidney for it.
I mean even with that, there are still a whole host of utility spells shown throughout the book (and can be made up if the Terf queen isn't incompetent) that could have been used to interact with the environment for combat. It's not a source material problem, even though the source material does suck, it's the fact that combat is an afterthought.
@@haihuynh8772 Honestly, if it went somewhere down the Witcher route of having spells be a much more social/puzzle sort of thing that'd be cool. But it didn't really bother with that afaik
Came into this video wanting to be a contrarian. But then you recognized that Magicka is the best wizard game ever and now i am completely on board with the video.
Your choices for background music in these videos are perfect. Like every single song you've used is one I've already had in my own Playlist since I first heard them. You even got music from Sonny Boy!! like fr that anime was so underrated that I thought I wouldn't find another soul who used its OST in a video! Now I really want to see what your music playlist looks like!
He used an undertale, hollow knight, silksong(it hasn't been released yet so he used a sample sondtrack named lace). All of these games have incredible sountracks so be sure to have a look. (Note: I didn't note the source of every sountrack only the ones I recognized )
Hah, meanwhile here's me, who does Every side quest in Crosscode as soon as it's available, basically memorized the lay of the land and all the empty rooms thanks to the jumping puzzles, enjoys the casual MMO aspects of the game's story with all the character interactions, and barely payed attention to much of the combat. (Oop this guys is weak to ice, gotta use ice) So yeah, one of my favourite games hah. You could remove like two elements and just have fire and ice, and the game would still be fire for me
Hoping it's Crosscode. It's awesome, just be ready for the Zelda style puzzles in the dungeons and don't feel bad about using the assist options because it can get HARD
About Cross Code: being an RPG who bets strongly on a combination of a fast-paced combat system with a heavy story-driven narrative, it does need to be more than just jumping around and blowing things up. Its well-written story and steady pacing are some of the elements that mix into with the hack slashing and MMO bits to make it a masterpiece of game design who appeals to both those who like quick reaction based games and those who like narrative-focused RPGs. That being said, it would be downright amazing to have a combat based spin off of it. Add local and online multiplayer with arena modes on top of it, how amazing would that be?
My personal favourite wizard game is a small indie called "magicmaker". It has that issue you have where you prepare spells before you enter a level, but I created a spell that turns me INTO A LITERAL COMET that UTTERLY DESTROYS ANY LEVEL AND NOTHING CAN BE DONE ABOUT IT. I AM A GOD AND ALL EVILDOERS WILL PRAY FOR A MERCY THAT'LL NEVER COME So yeah, pretty fun game
Magicka 2 is such a tragic game I had 3 friends I managed to convince to check out the first one (before they announced the sequel), they dicked around actively hindering any progress for 40 minutes then decided they didn't wanna touch the game ever again
@@emdeearh lmfao trip to memory lane. Though I will say arse mines were always not as good as the fabled freezing electric ice wall that explodes. That one was cast using the combo RQASER. It was optimal to enchant the spell to the blade and then unleash it as a line upon your foes. They would be impaled by a wall of ice, frozen and electrified at the same time, and then blown to smithereens. Was actually unfair in pvp I will say :) could just spawn camp infinitely
Go play the CrossCode dlc "A New Home". It's like 8 bucks and adds endgame content where you get to keep feeling like a badass for an extended period of time and completes the story better.
My god I can't say how much happiness and validation it brings me to hear someone else someone give Wizard of Legend the praise it deserves. It's so damn good and it has made me so sad how little attention it gets.
you can fix the noita problem by getting the wand tinkering mode, this way you can modify wands all the time, I play that with a bigger inventory, altho I still get oneshot by bosses
I played a game recently called "Bio-Prototype", which is technically not a wizards game since there is no mention of magic anywhere. The game is like a Vampire Survivors copycat that lets you build you own spells, up to 4 in each game. You do that by linking effects (shoot a projectile, do AoE damage, inflict toxin damage, Summon a companion, etc) and activators (activate on impact, activate every x seconds, activate when previous effect expires, etc). It did really scratch my itch for a game that lets you create your own complex spells, and where the variation on the spells that you can produce are meaningful, it lets you create some very creative weapons, without being overly complex like noita.
in terms of wizards games, nothing beats thematically nor have the equilibrium of deep/entretaiment system as being a Telvanni wizard in ole morrodind, the amount of fun interactions that magic had with the world and how godhood was archivable is an experience I will never forget
11:48 yeah I just liked fighting enemies so at this point I had already cleared the castle before the quest even started. I mean it just summoned the enemies back but it felt funny that he was freaking out at the slytherian kid telling him that building is full of goblins when I had just killed them all
This series feels pretty limited in focusing only on the combat aspects of being a wizard. Nothing about the puzzle solving, making magical potions, caring for mystical creatures, or any of the other areas wizards/mages are known for.
@TheStellarJay Time to get into the Atelier rabbit hole? (Technically those are alchemist games, not wizard games, but I just played the Dusk Trilogy and Escha & Logy was a masterpiece)
@@TheStellarJay Jay, if you happen to do another video more centered on puzzles, PLEASE check Mages of Mystralia, it has one of the most solid magic systems I tried.
I remember having a lot of fun playing the first Magicka game with three friends. A fun memory was me, being the only one left standing against the worm boss in the forest, deciding to throw the meteor shower spell as a hail Mary and it working by some kind of miracle. I didn't even die to it! By the end of the game though, we had optimised the hell out of it. We zoomed around with the teleport spell an obliterated everything with a freezing / lightning ray.
channels like yours are my last bastion of finding genuinely fun hidden gems covered by the stuff from the top dawgs we been getting of recent, thank you
If you have the correct resoures (which u can get in basically every run because they're super common) u can get back into the temple to re-edit ur wands whenever you want. Theres also a perk that allows you to edit ur wands anywhere whenever you want. You're just locked out of editing your wands whenever in the very very early game.
You should try playing Noita with the divine blessing perk or on nightmare difficulty which both let you edit wands outside of holy mountains. Granted nightmare difficulty is a lot harder, but can be fun for editing wands on the fly.
Have you tried Mages of Mystralia? It’s a somewhat older title, where you get 4 “basic spells” and then, whilst playing, you get runes to augment how these spells work - turn them into projectiles, make them boomerang, make them explode. It’s actually a pretty interesting looking game and might help a bit with that “wizard” itch.
Ever since I saw your first video I felt relieved that I wasn't the only one. I grew up reading fantasy books and watching anime detailing specific and nuanced magic systems that I would imagine myself using, and yet I couldn't find any games that gave me that feeling. Magicka 2 is great but I can't get anyone to play it with me :(
I've been binging your wizard game videos so I can get good recommendations. Also, wizard of legend is an amazing game - I beat in with all achievements and it was 100% worth it
Part 3 should be about VR magic games. You'd be surprised how great some are. And also probably ripped after playing enough of them! My suggestions are Rumble VR, Waltz's of the Wizard, Elixir, Blade and Sorcery, Asgard's Wrath, The WiZards - Dark Time, Orbus VR, and Yoren all spring to mind. Not quite sure if they all fit what you consider a wizard or magic game though.
Rumble VR is so cooooool, also B&S lets you enchant daggers with fire to climb a stone wall and stab an archer in the heart, and that’s by mixing the two least compatible main game mechanics of the game
Love to see CrossCode mentioned: it's right alongside Hades and Hollow Knight as a game that I consider a masterpiece. I am really surprised by your complaints about it though (except for the pacing, I can understand that especially if you're comparing it to a roguelike like WoL.) I was consistently impressed with how interesting the enemies are compared to most action games (I would easily rate the enemy design to be better than Hades for a top-down action game) and the world was cleverly designed with traversal puzzles that range across multiple screens, which I guess isn't for everyone but I certainly wouldn't call them empty. Mostly though, when you talked about the side quests it felt like we played different games. Every single side quest ends with a unique boss, miniboss, or combat minigame that makes them worth doing. I didn't do the side quests because I necessarily wanted the rewards, I did them because they all had interesting gameplay behind them and it's wild to me that you call them brain-liquefying. The side quests, to me, were easily the most impressive aspect of CrossCode specifically because of how they interacted with the combat, which seems to be your biggest point of praise so it's super confusing that you hated them.
I loved Magicka 1, after watching the, at the time, First Impressions TotalBiscuit had of it. Me and my brother played with my best friend for hours, and it is still one of my most played games on Steam. I tried getting into the second game, but when it released I had kind of moved to other genres. I'm looking to give it a try eventually once I get some new friends :) 😄😢
Wizard, are notorious and meticulous planner, fiddling and planning combo's and strategies, is exactly what a wizard does generally speaking. So thus it would make Noita more of a wizard game then the others such as magicka, which are more combat games focussed on remembering combo's. Learning, studying, inventing new spells and combat strategies ... (assuming they are combat focused or a battle mage or something, battle mage might be more adapt regarding magicka).
@PhoenicopterusR that's their whole archetype though, rigorous study and planning their spells. wizards aren't just spellcasters they are scholars and researchers
"Can't create new wands on a dime" I forgot this was a thing because I use a mod that lets me do that, but honestly it's mostly just upgrading it mid-level so I can create a wand that lets me fly through the air by repeatedly exploding behind myself and using the recoil
This is a really amazing video essay. Great balance of hilarious, proper pacing and well described opinions. I’m excited to see what u do in the future
I automatically owe you to like the video for simping on CrossCode. I played that shit for excessively long during early access and boy do I need to do it again now that the full release is out.
"Damn, I need a break from league, let me watch this video from Jay, I enjoy his content, and his wizard games opinions are fire" 8:15 Omg it's league of legends I CAN'T ESCAPE IT!
i have a wizard game for you. two worlds 2. craft your own wacky spells. one of my favourites is a spell that creates mines at the target location, where the mines make whoever steps on them, cast homing shotgun fireballs that rocochet to enemies. sadly it is a pretty old game from 2011
i really doubt supergiant games will mess up hades 2, with hades 1 being an amazing foundation. plus, it will be early access again as well, so we can give them our honest feedback before the official release and maybe steer the game in the right direction, if it were to start off on the wrong foot
Okay, to be fair to Hogwarts Legacy, the enemies do have various interactions with specific spells. For instance, you can slap an ogre with Flippendo after they do an overhead swing to slam its own club into its face, you can use Descendo to bury spiders into the dirt when they're doing certain attacks, and if you Expelliarmus an Executioner while they're winding up the big spell they accidentally blow themselves up. My favorite is the goblins, as you can disarm one of its melee weapon and then use ancient magic to slam its axe into its own face, as well as pull crossbow bolts out of their crossbows and hit them with them. The problem is that many of these interactions are incredibly nonobvious and often have finicky timing, and the game really isn't hard enough to make these things necessary.
I wanted to object, and say that the game is a bit harder than that, but then remembered that I tried to do no-damage (or as little as possible in my case). The only few times I died is when I went into a battle area intended for higher levels, and the troll kept teleporting to me when I dodged. I don’t think it was intended
Stellar if you ever do another one of this add in mages of mystralia it has a spell crafting system which is complex enough to have plenty of different spell combinations but it isn’t on the level of complexity and confusion of Noita but I would highly suggest you check it out
When it comes to the critique of Noita about not being able to experiment with spells on the fly, I honestly forgot that was the case because I've always been playing the game with a mod that gives your character the perk that lets you edit wands all the time anywhere. It makes the game a lot more enjoyable for me personally.
I didnt play a lot of magicka 2, but what i remember was there being a lot less combinations of elements than in magicka 1 which just completely pushed me away from the game.
The first thing I noticed when I played Magicka 2 is that tons of combinations just didn't work anymore. Its argued that its to balance the game, but tbh, it just made it less fun and less creative. To those reading this who only played Magicka 2, please go and try the first game. Theres a lot more spell combos and I've spent too much time just mixing things together.
Joining the Magicka 1 hype, I remember booting up 2 and noticing that for some reason the movement was really "floaty". Everything felt like Disney on Ice.
I've played at least 100 hours of Magicka. I used to speedrun it. I played Magicka Wizard Wars for dozens of hours. And while that game was never going to live up to Magicka, and is completely unplayable now, it delivered infinitely better than Magicka 2. I beat Magicka 2 just so I could say I did and will never touch it again. M2 felt like playing in sludge compared to the first game, and that's in spite of the endless bugs still present in Magicka. Because the joy of Magicka is that nothing is balanced. And that's something I don't think the devs for M2 understood.
Since when is CrossCode (probably my favourite game without "Xenoblade" in the title) a _wizard game‽_ This is definitely one of the _last_ places I expected to see it. If you just care about the combat (which definitely is good), then I can see how the game's length and how it slowly unlocks new options could be frustrating. I personally love puzzles and story-driven games so I had absolutely no issue at all. The various Combat Arts are definitely flashy as heck and the level 3 practically reach anime-levels of spectacle. It's awesome. There's honestly not much more I can say about it.
I'm sorry that you had a hard time with Noita but it's unironically knowledge + skill issue. There are ways to keep editing after leaving the holy mountain, you can even return to the holy mountain if you don't break it to keep editing there. The best perk in the game is called Tinker With Wands Everywhere and it does exactly what it says on the tin. Also skill issue don't stand next to explosives :3 DunkOrSlam has an excellent video showing how to return to HM: ua-cam.com/video/w2Tq9DGgcTk/v-deo.html
Yeah Noita is truly an experience, but I also get why it really isn't meant for everybody. I love the game and I still do a couple of runs every once in a while, it is definitely in my personal (and very restricted) pantheon of good games, but the deeply hidden mechanics, the counter-intuity of the wand building system and the amount of lag that end game builds can create are most definitely a step that the majority of people that play videogames won't like at all. But finding out weird-ass ways to heal myself, potion combos, wand builds for different playstyles, all the ways you can edit a wand or use greek letters and how to kill some bosses (i am looking at you kolmi) has been the most rewarding experience i had in a long while in a videogame
I just want to add how much I laughed at myself when i made an absolutely god like build with a spark bolt with trigger wand that fired in full auto bullets with piercing, homing and a gigantic trigger explosion only to get oneshotted by it when i accidentally came into contact of one of my thousands of bullets
@@whatisthisayoutubechannel yeah yeah yeah, absolutely, I just think that not all games are everyone's cup of coffee. For example (and I am going a bit off topic) my girlfriend really loved cupheads animations and graphics, but once she learnt that the game is *difficult* all of the enjoyment disappeared. Noita is definitely difficult and frustrating at some times to play, and not everyone has enough "gamer-knowledge" to find the fun in noita. Even I the first time i downloaded it tought that it was waaaaay too difficult
@@gianlukeoni1776 it's weird to say a "majority" of people wouldn't like the lag an "end game" build creates lmao. like 0.1% of the people playing the game would ever get to that point, and by then they probably wouldn't care about the lag. i dont think the wand building is "counter-intuitive", just really hard. but i do agree that certain stuff is *too* hidden. a tutorial (or even just more robust tooltips) would go an incredibly long way
I played a similar game called Mages of Mystralia. Game just gives you a bunch of elemental spells and then gives you options to connect and customize how those spells interact. I made a spell that had an infinite loop at the cost of my entire mana pool. It was a fun game
I know this a weird one, but what about Elden Ring or any of the Souls Trilogy games. The wizard builds are kinda like a weird deviation of an actually powerful wizard, you are more like an extremely weak and defendless wizard that needs to take constant supplements of mana to activate powerful spells. But idk, in some way, for me its kinda cool. And in Elden Ring specifically you can throw lightning spears from a horse.
Elden Ring and Souls in general is just throw projectiles of various flavours. You can't really modify them or make them interact save for something like Ranni and Rennala's moons which blocks magic and such.
@Hải Huỳnh I mean, that's kinda true although even tho most of them are different flavour proyectiles they have enough variation on how they work in battle that they do feel different. You have magic swords, a magic rain cast, an explosion proyectile, bubbles, etc. And all of those things have different casting times, range, mana consumption that makes the decision of wich to use a little more nuance. And when talking about this games specifically, i don't only mean the int builds and spells. To disregard the incantations would be a diservice of the games. Maybe they aren't technically magic but in any other game they would be called spells too. But besides all that, there are also a lot more magical elements that come in play in the games besides only spells. Summoning spirit ashes for example, that's something a cool necromancer would do. In terms of wizard games specifically, it obviously fails in comparison with many of the listed ones here, but i do think it does surpass a lot of the proyectiles magic games by a lot.
Magicka 2 is so much fun. I remember struggling in solo when a random expert wizard joined me, dropped his discord and basically held my hand the whole game. Teaching me all kinds of cool spells. 10/10
theres a perk that allows you to change your wands on the go, and if you're a normal person, you'll just mod it in so you can always have it from the start of the game
![Lp. Сердце Вселенной #60 РОЖДЕНИЕ ЛОЛОЛОШКИ [Финал] • Майнкрафт](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/YoR0pAV9FVQ/mqdefault.jpg)
My roommate caught me putting syrup on tortillas, please subscribe.
10% off: gamersupps.gg/Stellar
pictures or didn't happen
@@gustaove it's in the video
YO on that image of gamer supps I reconginzed the Titty milk and the Guacamole Gamer Fart 9000 RESPECT MAN.
Mad props for bringing back the Ultimate Showdown
Your choices for background music in these videos are perfect. Like every single song you've used is one I've already had in my own Playlist since I first heard them. You even got music from Sonny Boy!! like fr that anime was so underrated that I thought I wouldn't find another soul who used its OST in a video! Now I really want to see what your music playlist looks like!
"just cuz you put syrup on something doesnt make it pancakes" Jay is a philosopher wondering about matters we desperately need answers for
Walter white more like Walter ugly
Heisenberg sighting!!!!
Yo Mr. White, stop playing with wands and help me cook.💠
Ok, do you watch all the same channels i do? Cause I see you everywher
Bro is everywhere
The best part of Noita is the massive payoff when you do get powerful. There is basically no cap on how powerful you can get, but no matter how strong you get you still have to be careful of getting turned into a sheep and dying.
Also there are two ways to gain the ability to edit wands anywhere, and you do need to edit your wands to fit the situation in certain endgame areas.
I mean you CAN make a wand that is essentially "one size fits all", but they are either hella dangerous, hella complex, both or just suck.
I'd say that noita IS about thinking dynamically, as in it forces you to cook up things with what you have, but rather than forcing you to do it on the fly it allows for respite to organise you things. This makes most of the playthroughs rather unique in their own ways, which in turn keeps the game fresh. The only bland part(spell wise) is the "early game", since you lack the spells to actually do anything more interesting than a glorified machine gun or a shotgun and since you are most vulnerable in the early game that's where most of the early expirementing would take place, so imagine a lot of people get turned off by it, without actually feeling the power and charm of the system.
" There is basically no cap on how powerful you can get, but no matter how strong you get you still have to be careful of getting turned into a sheep and dying."
The best games teach us lessons like these, that can be used in real life too.
If it takes half the game to find the fun for your particular style of playing, that game isn't worth playing. It's the "The show really picks up by episode 300" of video games. Not saying Noita is bad or unfun, just that it's not necessarily for everyone and that's perfectly okay. It doesn't have to be.
@@wanderer202you can just play nightmare mode and you’ll have some form of your preferred style pretty quickly.
@wanderer202 exactly this. Not trying to spend a super long time just to STILL get one shot.
Man, I sure hope supergiant games don’t screw up Hades 2. The first game was such a masterpiece.
Supergiant has made a grand total of 0 bad games so I wouldn't be too worried
agreed
Supergiant and screwups are on absolute opposite ends of scales
That would be the FIRST time they did so, so no, they won't screw it up.
They won’t mess it up but it might not be the wizard game that he’s looking for
Noita literally makes you a wizard. You aren’t just some faker casting someone else’s spells, you’re making your own spells to use. And 80% of those spells backfire horribly and kill you, just like real magic should
the fact you mention crosscode and enjoyed it means any previous critism is recinded perfect channel
real
Based
Maybe I should give crosscode a second try. From what I gleaned from this video I made the mistake of trying to play the game before unlocking any good abilities, and not progressing past the first few zones before coming to the conclusion that its boring and bad.
@@peikkeinanen5064your mileage will probably vary depending on how much you like the puzzles tbh. I loved the emphasis on puzzles but I can see a lot of people hating this game for it.
A tried and true wizard game is Mages of Mistralia. A short but incredibly sweet experience in which you mix spells and elements to solve puzzles and kill stuff, cute story and artstyle. It's nothing crazy but I really enjoyed it and it even got a bit difficult in certain parts since I started hard mode immediately.
Yea its a good game
Seconding this! It's the one game I've personally played that properly feels like a genuine magic system
I don't get why anybody else isn't talking about Mages of Mistralia, it's amazing. But it's so sad that is to short
It's easily my favourite for building spells, the sheer amount of control you have is unmatched. My only complaint is there is very little of the game left once you have everything unlocked, and I'd love more of an opportunity to continue experimenting and designing spells. It really needs a post-game with some new challenges to play with your abilities more.
Also, not sure how accurate this may be since all the developers socials have been silent for years, but I saw a leak indicating a potential sequel; "Echoes of Mystralia" was apparently trademarked by the company a couple of months ago.
Never thought of Crosscode as a wizard game, but that totally makes sense. It's one of my favorite games ever (might help that I liked the story and puzzles) and I can confirm the combat definitely feels amazing, like if Wizard of Legend spaced out the big attacks with a sp meter instead of cooldowns
CrossCode is one of the absolute best games... That'll I'll probably never play again because it takes SO LONG TO COMPLETE HOLY MOTHERFUCK... I dumped 50 HOURS into it and I'm barely HALFWAY DONE. And I'm so torn on this, because at very least a good quarter of that runtime is all because of the incredibly hard dungeons. And when you get through them, you feel a huge sense of accomplishment, but damn it... SO long.
@@arnox4554 There are accecibility sliders in the options with the title "the game was designed to be this difficult, but if it prevents you from having fun, here are some sliders".
+ mods can add even better controls over this (yes, there mods for CC).
@@V972 Yeah, but then it feels like I'm giving up.
@@arnox4554 You only give up when you drop the game for good IMO.
When devs themsevles give you the option and say "yeah, go for it, as long as you have fun", I see no reason not to try it.
Speaking from experience, I have a pretty shit reaction time so I struggled with puzzles, but lowering the puzzle speed (and not even by much) did wonders for me and let me finish the game.
@@arnox4554 the game has very good replay value once you unlock ng+
It urns all those achievements you got into game modifiers that can make it easier or harder. I was able to blast through the game in less than 10 hours with a few on.
Noita, is a spell builder rogue like. You don't just randomly discover spell combos, you craft them and try them out and see if they even work at all. Very cool.
I actually love how in-depth Noita's wand system is, maybe that has something do with being a programmer, but crafting the perfect wand to take advantage of placing spells and modifiers in the correct order is very satisfying.....also Crosscode is GOAT
It's closer to a puzzles than action. But did you ever tried Mages of Mystralia? It's the closest to "Wizard programming" I played yet.
Noita is an unironic masterpiece. It’s the single best game I’ve ever played and I’m constantly discovering more and more. Anyone reading this who hasn’t played Noita HAS TO. I cannot emphasise how incredibly good it is
@@woahmamaawoogahonkahonka really? I mean I had it. But what's so good? And can you explain in dumb terms why there's a few seconds b4 I can use a spell?
@@HassanAhmed-rf9xr I think Noita is a masterpiece because of the sheer depth of the game - it’s one of the few games where, with the tools you have, you can truly do *anything* limited to what your computer can handle. There’s thousands of hours worth of content and that’s not even an exaggeration. It’s truly incredible.
A few seconds before spells casting is an odd problem, but I have a few reasons as to why it happens. If you hover your mouse over the wand, you’ll see all of them have a “cast delay” and “recharge time” stat. After you fire a spell in your wand, you have to wait to fire the next one. The amount of time you have to wait is the cast delay. However, once you’ve cast all of the spells in your wand once, you have to wait for the recharge time (you may have to wait for the cast delay if it’s longer than the recharge time but ignore that for now.)
So, it may be that - the wand you picked has a very long cast delay or recharge time. You can check up the top right under your stat bars to see if your wand is recharging or delayed, or you can click again and if it shakes and makes a sound, you can’t fire immediately. However, your cast delay and recharge time might be very low. If you hover over your spells, you can see most will add or remove cast delay or recharge time - you might have accidentally stuck a very high delay spell on the wand.
If none of that helps, check the mana max and mana charge speed on your wand. Mana charge speed is how much mana you regain per second, and mana max is the maximum amount of mana you can have. Each spell requires mana - you can hover over the spell to see how much. So, what may have happened is you cast the spell, it consumes a LOT of your mana. Say you have 100 mana and 10 charge speed, for example, and a spell which consumes 100 mana.
When you left click, the wand will immediately be set to zero mana, fire the spell, and then start to charge mana again. Obviously 100/10 is 10 - so it will be a full 10 seconds before you’re able to cast the spell again because you don’t have enough mana.
So, overall, two things might have gone wrong - your wand has bad stats, or your computer can’t handle Noita. I doubt it’s the second one because I have an ancient laptop with awful specs but it still chugs along okay. The game is in slow motion, but at 60fps.
@@woahmamaawoogahonkahonka it's time for you to play more games then.
I played this game called Mages of Mystralia. The spell system is really intuitive and VERY complex, to the point where you can exponentially increase your attack power with like 4 pieces
Sounds interesting,could you elaborate?
@@BrunoMaricFromZagreb each spell you create has this hexagonal grid, and there are spell components that each do a very simple thing, but the way they are placed on the grid and which components they are attached to determine how the spell works. It gets even deeper with triggers, in which a spell can trigger another spell and so on until you run out of mana. Check the game out, it’s a really cool concept and it’s probably not that expensive.
I recently finished a Skyrim modding project to fix the game's master spells because it doesn't matter how impressive your two-handed fiery explosion spell is if it's only effective against skeevers. I ended up overhauling the existing ones and building from scratch another 5 master spells, plus 10 extra expert-level spells.
Thing is, I ended up looking into other games with spells and magic for ideas on what the new spells could do and how they could act.
Magika and Magika 2 were a god damn goldmine of magic inspiration. So was Electroblob's Wizardry, the best Minecraft magic mod since Thaumcraft.
The witchcraft mod for Minecraft was also a really immersive magic experience there was a lot of nuance with the magic and in a lot of cool fashions. Like it had diverse potions, wands with spells you had to study and practice to improve on, ritual casting, sacrificial casting, voodoo like poppets, magical flora and fauna you had to learn how to live/deal with, interdimensional planes of existence, and honestly more I am probably forgetting or just didn't figure out about. It was a really cool mod it's a shame it isn't updated for the modern versions.
Really wish litteraly all Magic MC mods weren't such grind fests
That sounds pretty chill. I always wanted the Bethesda games to have good spellcasting, but I was always rather disappointed. Never played Arena or Daggerfall, but I remember in Morrowind you had to be specific race/birthsign combos to even have a Magicka pool high enough to do cast more than like 2-3 spells without needing potions or sleep, in Oblivion all the creatures leveling up with you meant that eventually you'd need 40-50+ castings of the vanilla spells to kill them, and in Skyrim the master spells were just so disappointing......
Also hated how in Oblivion your master Illusionist couldn't charm simple bandits once you leveled over 25, so if you wanted to feel like an actual badass wizard you had to cheese the class skills so you'd never level past a certain range.
The separation of gameplay elements in Noita that you mentioned is actually what I love most about the game. As someone who isn't very good at performing combos or just doing complex inputs on the spot, the ability to plan out exactly how an attack is going to work in advance and only having to press down to a single button to use it is really helpful. It's also allows for the satisfaction of optimizing your wands beyond reason with the knowledge you've gained through repeated playthroughs or through scouring the wiki and UA-cam.
Just mentioning Crosscode earns you an obligatory like, also as someone who wants to make a wizard game, I really want to play Magicka 2
Play the first one instead. It may be significantly crash-prone but it's overall superior to the sequel
@@BlackStoneDiamond how?
@@healgoth Well, first of all, it's not ridiculously hard if you play alone, compared to Magicka 2, and the main reason I would like to give you is that you have just much more freedom in casting spells.
Now, it's been a veeeery long time since I played Magicka 2, but what I do remember is that there was a delay imposed on you that prevented you from spamming magicks. In my opinion, what made Magicka *shine* in the first place was how much you could exploit the game and the sheer chaotic nature of it. This is something that's been significantly toned down in the sequel. In addition (and don't take my word for it, actually, since I barely even remember it), I believe the story and the humor in the sequel were of an inferior quality compared to the original. I may be wrong, though
To this day, of the two, the only game I replayed *multiple* times was the first Magicka.
@@healgoth - I second their recommendation. Magicka the original is a far superior game experience, including with friends, despite having a few goofy physics bugs.
The magic system is less balanced but more robust, you can cast spells faster thanks to less input delay (some people made input scripts for the original, which is scummy in PvP mode, but the enforced delay is really annoying), the story is better (and the M2 storyline picks up after it, so that would make no sense without it anyway), the voice acting is better, the comedy is better, and the game is peppered with references to various movies and games with secret items hidden around the maps and some story beats.
The first game also has multiple DLC bundles for added content that are quite good, and PvE arenas where you can fight against waves of baddies with up to three friends.
I highly, highly recommend Magicka 1, and after you play that, if you liked it, well, maybe try 2 I guess. It's not the worst, but it's a pale imitation of the original.
The best form of Magicka though was Wizard Wars: the separate PvP arena game, which originally used a capture-point and respawn ticket system with fairly small maps so you could always quickly get back into the fight, but which died out after they added and heavily pushed in favor of a DotA-style 3-lane PvE for XP game mode...
@@healgothsheer amount of content for one. Magicka 1 was about 10-16 (45 completionist) hours of gameplay compared to Magicka 2’s 6-10 (33 completionist) and the side quests and completionist content were also just a lot more substantive. With Magicka 2, you kind of breeze through it and then grind away at the various levels so you can unlock easy mode or other nothingburger setting options. Plus an absolute shitload of DLC.
Crosscode is the result of someone looking at jrpg’s and saying “I want to do that combat but in real time and me doing it.” And then they decided to keep all the other parts of jrpg’s too.
i get how you feel about noita, its just got a really steep learning curve. once you get past it tho shite starts going crazy. definitely has the best wand building out of any wizard game
I put about 30 hours into the game and just went... meh. it kinda boils down to trying to get a wand made that 1 shots.
@@MeatyZeeg Hilariously this is the reason I like Noita. I like how you find your 2million DPS wand, your infinite healing and infinite terrain destruction and become an unkillable God, making the game completely trivial.
I like it because thematically, the game is punishing you for using your knowledge (probably from reading the wiki) to become unnecessarily powerful by making the game become boring
@@MeatyZeeg I mean for just winning the game / winning the game with more orbs this is all it boils down to. But there is like the whole tree of achievements to do which requires a shit ton of other stuff :)) and to just beat the game all you need is invis or a bunch of black holes it's not that hard
When it comes to the critique of Noita about not being able to experiment with spells on the fly, I honestly forgot that was the case because I've always been playing the game with a mod that gives your character the perk that lets you edit wands all the time anywhere. It makes the game a lot more enjoyable for me personally.
Shite? u irish lad? never heard anyone outside of ireland say shite
2:25 now the difficult part is actually getting the friends you need for the game
No the real difficult part is making it 5 pixels through the game without getting blown up by your friends
Theres a game called Magicmaker (its one word not two) you should try, its kinda like magicka 2 except 2d and with a unique artstyle.
It makes you think of the spells you make as a puzzle to figure out what best fits your quest
Edit: ok upon watching more of the video i would say magicmaker is closer to noita in terms of spell building, but less unforgiving, its been a while since i played it but i think it was more clear and consistent on what you should aim for with your spells, plus the levels arent super long and no permadeath makes you feel less bad about not having some kind of optimal build
magicmaker is an absolute gem, and still the best "build your own spells" game on the market afaik. 100% recommend this little game, I play it again every year or two.
Hey, I say this a lot, but... Ever tried Mystralia?
@@aleinsausti4857 nope, I'll take a look at it
@@aleinsausti4857 ok I've taken a look and I'll probably get it, if I remember to I'll come back here after I've finished the game
@@aleinsausti4857 mystralia is just noita for kids
Huge fan of how Magicka's magic system and gameplay work. I am still emotionally scarred by my Wizard Wars being canceled.
Honestly with this much dedication, I’m willing to make you the game with the magic system you want lmao. Going to graduate in 2 months with my CS degree and I’m going to work in the game industry so it’ll be good experience.
Remember to update us once you get going, Im sure many of us want to help out testing stuff
though i have to say that's pretty ambitious for a post graduate, game dev takes so long, alas good luck
The council will witness your journey with great interest
I’m doing a similar class and I’ll be done in about a year, I had the same idea
What CS stands for?
Btw I think it is several of us who had a similar idea!
I like your takes on magic games. Prioritizing flow, agency, understanding over unlocking, and by having new and unique encounters with enemies making you have to think outside the box is a great way to sum up a good magic game. I know there’s also the combo’s you can do but I can’t fully understand how those impact game feel.
For Noita theres a very commonly used mod, "edit wands anywhere".
Its just one of the perks you can get in the game, but its on by default. it really does make the game worth playing IMHO
Also the perk is given to you by default at the start in Nightmare mode runs, along with 3 random wands (on top of the 2 you start with) and 3 random perks
subscribed as soon as the video ended! i love the pace and the jokes and the way you talk, it just makes it so entertaining to watch! Keep it up!!
I expected Hogwarts legacy to not be that great for the simple fact that magic in the movie wasn't the greatest thing either.
I mean. The combat between Voldemort and Harry Potter was Voldemort screaming avada kedavra and poiting a thunder spell at Harry and Harry screaming Expllelliarmus and poiting a thunderous spell at Voldemort. That was it.
On the other hand if I am ever gonna find a game with magic as cool as The Owl House or Hunter Hunter I am gonna sell my kidney for it.
Man now you've made me sad because there's no fucking way Disney would ever green light an owl house game
I mean even with that, there are still a whole host of utility spells shown throughout the book (and can be made up if the Terf queen isn't incompetent) that could have been used to interact with the environment for combat. It's not a source material problem, even though the source material does suck, it's the fact that combat is an afterthought.
@@haihuynh8772 Honestly, if it went somewhere down the Witcher route of having spells be a much more social/puzzle sort of thing that'd be cool. But it didn't really bother with that afaik
If you have played Hogwarts legacy you know the combat is nothing like the movies it’s amazing
Yeah that was a lame final fight, especially compared to Dumbledore vs Voldemort. That shit was incredible
YOOOO I can tell I’m going to love your video game essays :DDD
Came into this video wanting to be a contrarian. But then you recognized that Magicka is the best wizard game ever and now i am completely on board with the video.
If wizard of legend 2 has online coop, imma be real deep in love
Your choices for background music in these videos are perfect. Like every single song you've used is one I've already had in my own Playlist since I first heard them. You even got music from Sonny Boy!! like fr that anime was so underrated that I thought I wouldn't find another soul who used its OST in a video! Now I really want to see what your music playlist looks like!
He used an undertale, hollow knight, silksong(it hasn't been released yet so he used a sample sondtrack named lace). All of these games have incredible sountracks so be sure to have a look. (Note: I didn't note the source of every sountrack only the ones I recognized )
I've been meaning to make a youtube Playlist of them, just the ones I use in videos is like 130 tracks long I think
@@TheStellarJay My playlist is almost exactly that long too lol
Hah, meanwhile here's me, who does Every side quest in Crosscode as soon as it's available, basically memorized the lay of the land and all the empty rooms thanks to the jumping puzzles, enjoys the casual MMO aspects of the game's story with all the character interactions, and barely payed attention to much of the combat. (Oop this guys is weak to ice, gotta use ice)
So yeah, one of my favourite games hah. You could remove like two elements and just have fire and ice, and the game would still be fire for me
Bought wizard of legend because of your first wizard game video. Looking forward to what I might buy because of this one!
Hoping it's Crosscode. It's awesome, just be ready for the Zelda style puzzles in the dungeons and don't feel bad about using the assist options because it can get HARD
crosscode is AMAZING lowkey favorite game ever
About Cross Code: being an RPG who bets strongly on a combination of a fast-paced combat system with a heavy story-driven narrative, it does need to be more than just jumping around and blowing things up. Its well-written story and steady pacing are some of the elements that mix into with the hack slashing and MMO bits to make it a masterpiece of game design who appeals to both those who like quick reaction based games and those who like narrative-focused RPGs.
That being said, it would be downright amazing to have a combat based spin off of it. Add local and online multiplayer with arena modes on top of it, how amazing would that be?
This unlocked a section of my brain I forgot after years of trauma
My personal favourite wizard game is a small indie called "magicmaker". It has that issue you have where you prepare spells before you enter a level, but I created a spell that turns me INTO A LITERAL COMET that UTTERLY DESTROYS ANY LEVEL AND NOTHING CAN BE DONE ABOUT IT. I AM A GOD AND ALL EVILDOERS WILL PRAY FOR A MERCY THAT'LL NEVER COME
So yeah, pretty fun game
Magicka 2 is such a tragic game
I had 3 friends I managed to convince to check out the first one (before they announced the sequel), they dicked around actively hindering any progress for 40 minutes then decided they didn't wanna touch the game ever again
Oh, I remember this game! The Yogscast and TotalBiscuit played it years ago, and Simon accidentally made the OP bombs.
I'm glad I'm not the only person who remembers the ARSE mines
@@emdeearh lmfao trip to memory lane. Though I will say arse mines were always not as good as the fabled freezing electric ice wall that explodes. That one was cast using the combo RQASER. It was optimal to enchant the spell to the blade and then unleash it as a line upon your foes. They would be impaled by a wall of ice, frozen and electrified at the same time, and then blown to smithereens. Was actually unfair in pvp I will say :) could just spawn camp infinitely
@Vishnu Achar You should check out high level Magicka pvp. That spell barely kills due to its predictability and overreliability
@@emrld_wz high level magicka pvp is just intelligent rock spam lol that game isn't actually well balanced
I was surprised you didn't even mention Magica in the previous Wizards video. Yay!
I still dont even imagine getting tired of watching Jay jump from side to side with the Mob ost on the back but the reviewing is perfect.
Go play the CrossCode dlc "A New Home". It's like 8 bucks and adds endgame content where you get to keep feeling like a badass for an extended period of time and completes the story better.
My god I can't say how much happiness and validation it brings me to hear someone else someone give Wizard of Legend the praise it deserves.
It's so damn good and it has made me so sad how little attention it gets.
7:04 Was me thinking I had my own playlist playing while listening to this video. Ado - Backlight is a banger my dude, nice.
you can fix the noita problem by getting the wand tinkering mode, this way you can modify wands all the time, I play that with a bigger inventory, altho I still get oneshot by bosses
Or just play nightmare mode.... Git gud :)
I played a game recently called "Bio-Prototype", which is technically not a wizards game since there is no mention of magic anywhere. The game is like a Vampire Survivors copycat that lets you build you own spells, up to 4 in each game. You do that by linking effects (shoot a projectile, do AoE damage, inflict toxin damage, Summon a companion, etc) and activators (activate on impact, activate every x seconds, activate when previous effect expires, etc).
It did really scratch my itch for a game that lets you create your own complex spells, and where the variation on the spells that you can produce are meaningful, it lets you create some very creative weapons, without being overly complex like noita.
in terms of wizards games, nothing beats thematically nor have the equilibrium of deep/entretaiment system as being a Telvanni wizard in ole morrodind, the amount of fun interactions that magic had with the world and how godhood was archivable is an experience I will never forget
11:48 yeah I just liked fighting enemies so at this point I had already cleared the castle before the quest even started. I mean it just summoned the enemies back but it felt funny that he was freaking out at the slytherian kid telling him that building is full of goblins when I had just killed them all
This series feels pretty limited in focusing only on the combat aspects of being a wizard.
Nothing about the puzzle solving, making magical potions, caring for mystical creatures, or any of the other areas wizards/mages are known for.
Good point, will keep in mind if I ever make a part 3
Idc, I wanna smite a dude with a bifurcating zigzaguing comet.
@TheStellarJay Time to get into the Atelier rabbit hole? (Technically those are alchemist games, not wizard games, but I just played the Dusk Trilogy and Escha & Logy was a masterpiece)
We need magic focused stardew valley
@@TheStellarJay Jay, if you happen to do another video more centered on puzzles, PLEASE check Mages of Mystralia, it has one of the most solid magic systems I tried.
I remember having a lot of fun playing the first Magicka game with three friends.
A fun memory was me, being the only one left standing against the worm boss in the forest, deciding to throw the meteor shower spell as a hail Mary and it working by some kind of miracle. I didn't even die to it!
By the end of the game though, we had optimised the hell out of it. We zoomed around with the teleport spell an obliterated everything with a freezing / lightning ray.
If you like Magika can I recommend 9 parchments? It's virtually a clone (with less depth) of magika but SOOO pretty.
Man's casually using absolute bangers like otherside as background tracks - i fkn love it
Crazy coincidence you drop a part two the day after i finally bought Wizard of Legend, which i am absolutely loving.
channels like yours are my last bastion of finding genuinely fun hidden gems covered by the stuff from the top dawgs we been getting of recent, thank you
Simply mentioning 'Crosscode' activated all of my neurons. Instant Subscribe.
If you have the correct resoures (which u can get in basically every run because they're super common) u can get back into the temple to re-edit ur wands whenever you want. Theres also a perk that allows you to edit ur wands anywhere whenever you want. You're just locked out of editing your wands whenever in the very very early game.
Magika 2 is amazing so sad that it didn’t do well if the game would have gotten the right exposure it would have been much bigger
Magicka 2 is like my third favorite game of all time
You should try playing Noita with the divine blessing perk or on nightmare difficulty which both let you edit wands outside of holy mountains. Granted nightmare difficulty is a lot harder, but can be fun for editing wands on the fly.
Have you tried Mages of Mystralia? It’s a somewhat older title, where you get 4 “basic spells” and then, whilst playing, you get runes to augment how these spells work - turn them into projectiles, make them boomerang, make them explode. It’s actually a pretty interesting looking game and might help a bit with that “wizard” itch.
Ever since I saw your first video I felt relieved that I wasn't the only one. I grew up reading fantasy books and watching anime detailing specific and nuanced magic systems that I would imagine myself using, and yet I couldn't find any games that gave me that feeling. Magicka 2 is great but I can't get anyone to play it with me :(
2:09 Omg. Hearing sexybamboe's voice brought tear to my eye. RIP😢 bambie, you will be missed.
I've been binging your wizard game videos so I can get good recommendations. Also, wizard of legend is an amazing game - I beat in with all achievements and it was 100% worth it
The idea of a talking, nerdy, hyperactive mockin-jay is weirdly cute and wholesome?
Part 3 should be about VR magic games. You'd be surprised how great some are. And also probably ripped after playing enough of them!
My suggestions are Rumble VR, Waltz's of the Wizard, Elixir, Blade and Sorcery, Asgard's Wrath, The WiZards - Dark Time, Orbus VR, and Yoren all spring to mind. Not quite sure if they all fit what you consider a wizard or magic game though.
there are also some cool magic mods for skyrim vr
Rumble VR is so cooooool, also B&S lets you enchant daggers with fire to climb a stone wall and stab an archer in the heart, and that’s by mixing the two least compatible main game mechanics of the game
Bro I loved Magicka 1, I didn't even know Magicka 2 was a thing. Also like intense meticulous planning feels more stereotypical wizard
Love to see CrossCode mentioned: it's right alongside Hades and Hollow Knight as a game that I consider a masterpiece. I am really surprised by your complaints about it though (except for the pacing, I can understand that especially if you're comparing it to a roguelike like WoL.) I was consistently impressed with how interesting the enemies are compared to most action games (I would easily rate the enemy design to be better than Hades for a top-down action game) and the world was cleverly designed with traversal puzzles that range across multiple screens, which I guess isn't for everyone but I certainly wouldn't call them empty. Mostly though, when you talked about the side quests it felt like we played different games. Every single side quest ends with a unique boss, miniboss, or combat minigame that makes them worth doing. I didn't do the side quests because I necessarily wanted the rewards, I did them because they all had interesting gameplay behind them and it's wild to me that you call them brain-liquefying. The side quests, to me, were easily the most impressive aspect of CrossCode specifically because of how they interacted with the combat, which seems to be your biggest point of praise so it's super confusing that you hated them.
you gotta try playing as one of the caster classes in baldurs gate 3
I remember hearing about magika. It has some truley off the wall bs. Had a biss that could be "over healed" and explode. Also had a m16 as a wand
It was also filled to bursting with dumb (in a good way) jokes and references.
8:44 "so you're just kinda sitting there whacking it" been there, brother
I loved Magicka 1, after watching the, at the time, First Impressions TotalBiscuit had of it. Me and my brother played with my best friend for hours, and it is still one of my most played games on Steam. I tried getting into the second game, but when it released I had kind of moved to other genres. I'm looking to give it a try eventually once I get some new friends :) 😄😢
6:40 "put em' in a room together, they get into an argument."
Finally someone is talking about the lack of wizard games! my favorite game is also wizard of legend!
0:45 BRO WHY WAS THAT SO CATCHY AND SATISFYNG
Wizard, are notorious and meticulous planner, fiddling and planning combo's and strategies, is exactly what a wizard does generally speaking. So thus it would make Noita more of a wizard game then the others such as magicka, which are more combat games focussed on remembering combo's. Learning, studying, inventing new spells and combat strategies ... (assuming they are combat focused or a battle mage or something, battle mage might be more adapt regarding magicka).
Nitpicking between what a wizard is by how they do their wizarding thing seems like an unnecessary complication.
@PhoenicopterusR that's their whole archetype though, rigorous study and planning their spells. wizards aren't just spellcasters they are scholars and researchers
"Can't create new wands on a dime"
I forgot this was a thing because I use a mod that lets me do that, but honestly it's mostly just upgrading it mid-level so I can create a wand that lets me fly through the air by repeatedly exploding behind myself and using the recoil
This is a really amazing video essay. Great balance of hilarious, proper pacing and well described opinions. I’m excited to see what u do in the future
I automatically owe you to like the video for simping on CrossCode. I played that shit for excessively long during early access and boy do I need to do it again now that the full release is out.
"Damn, I need a break from league, let me watch this video from Jay, I enjoy his content, and his wizard games opinions are fire"
8:15
Omg it's league of legends I CAN'T ESCAPE IT!
i have a wizard game for you. two worlds 2. craft your own wacky spells. one of my favourites is a spell that creates mines at the target location, where the mines make whoever steps on them, cast homing shotgun fireballs that rocochet to enemies. sadly it is a pretty old game from 2011
0:42 That looks and sounds familiar. What is that?
Ultimate showdown of ultimate destiny
0:42 I genuinely didn't expect to be caught so off guard by that callback.
i really doubt supergiant games will mess up hades 2, with hades 1 being an amazing foundation. plus, it will be early access again as well, so we can give them our honest feedback before the official release and maybe steer the game in the right direction, if it were to start off on the wrong foot
Noita nightmare mode starts you with 3 extra wands, 3 random perks, and edit wands everywhere. Highly recommend
Okay, to be fair to Hogwarts Legacy, the enemies do have various interactions with specific spells. For instance, you can slap an ogre with Flippendo after they do an overhead swing to slam its own club into its face, you can use Descendo to bury spiders into the dirt when they're doing certain attacks, and if you Expelliarmus an Executioner while they're winding up the big spell they accidentally blow themselves up. My favorite is the goblins, as you can disarm one of its melee weapon and then use ancient magic to slam its axe into its own face, as well as pull crossbow bolts out of their crossbows and hit them with them. The problem is that many of these interactions are incredibly nonobvious and often have finicky timing, and the game really isn't hard enough to make these things necessary.
I wanted to object, and say that the game is a bit harder than that, but then remembered that I tried to do no-damage (or as little as possible in my case). The only few times I died is when I went into a battle area intended for higher levels, and the troll kept teleporting to me when I dodged. I don’t think it was intended
Your videos keep me engaged jajajjaa, you talk fast, throw tons of things and edit amazingly, thanks for your content man
Stellar if you ever do another one of this add in mages of mystralia it has a spell crafting system which is complex enough to have plenty of different spell combinations but it isn’t on the level of complexity and confusion of Noita but I would highly suggest you check it out
The music selection in your videos is so peak, also I liked the rest of it too
Cross Code has been on my Steam Wishlist for about 3 years and I'm glad to say that after your praise it will remain there for only 3 more.
may only be the first video I've seen of yours but I like the structure, nice to hear someone else talk about the lack of proper wizard games.
When it comes to the critique of Noita about not being able to experiment with spells on the fly, I honestly forgot that was the case because I've always been playing the game with a mod that gives your character the perk that lets you edit wands all the time anywhere. It makes the game a lot more enjoyable for me personally.
I helped a bit with the development of Cross Code way back in the day, It makes me so happy to see people loving it.
I didnt play a lot of magicka 2, but what i remember was there being a lot less combinations of elements than in magicka 1 which just completely pushed me away from the game.
The first thing I noticed when I played Magicka 2 is that tons of combinations just didn't work anymore. Its argued that its to balance the game, but tbh, it just made it less fun and less creative.
To those reading this who only played Magicka 2, please go and try the first game. Theres a lot more spell combos and I've spent too much time just mixing things together.
Joining the Magicka 1 hype, I remember booting up 2 and noticing that for some reason the movement was really "floaty". Everything felt like Disney on Ice.
I've played at least 100 hours of Magicka. I used to speedrun it. I played Magicka Wizard Wars for dozens of hours. And while that game was never going to live up to Magicka, and is completely unplayable now, it delivered infinitely better than Magicka 2. I beat Magicka 2 just so I could say I did and will never touch it again. M2 felt like playing in sludge compared to the first game, and that's in spite of the endless bugs still present in Magicka. Because the joy of Magicka is that nothing is balanced. And that's something I don't think the devs for M2 understood.
Since when is CrossCode (probably my favourite game without "Xenoblade" in the title) a _wizard game‽_ This is definitely one of the _last_ places I expected to see it. If you just care about the combat (which definitely is good), then I can see how the game's length and how it slowly unlocks new options could be frustrating. I personally love puzzles and story-driven games so I had absolutely no issue at all. The various Combat Arts are definitely flashy as heck and the level 3 practically reach anime-levels of spectacle. It's awesome. There's honestly not much more I can say about it.
There's a mod for Noita that gives you the "craft wands everywhere" perk right at the start and I find the game borderline unplayable without it.
Skill issue.
Was NOT expecting to see crosscode on this list! I love that game sm!
I'm sorry that you had a hard time with Noita but it's unironically knowledge + skill issue.
There are ways to keep editing after leaving the holy mountain, you can even return to the holy mountain if you don't break it to keep editing there.
The best perk in the game is called Tinker With Wands Everywhere and it does exactly what it says on the tin.
Also skill issue don't stand next to explosives :3
DunkOrSlam has an excellent video showing how to return to HM: ua-cam.com/video/w2Tq9DGgcTk/v-deo.html
Yeah Noita is truly an experience, but I also get why it really isn't meant for everybody. I love the game and I still do a couple of runs every once in a while, it is definitely in my personal (and very restricted) pantheon of good games, but the deeply hidden mechanics, the counter-intuity of the wand building system and the amount of lag that end game builds can create are most definitely a step that the majority of people that play videogames won't like at all. But finding out weird-ass ways to heal myself, potion combos, wand builds for different playstyles, all the ways you can edit a wand or use greek letters and how to kill some bosses (i am looking at you kolmi) has been the most rewarding experience i had in a long while in a videogame
I just want to add how much I laughed at myself when i made an absolutely god like build with a spark bolt with trigger wand that fired in full auto bullets with piercing, homing and a gigantic trigger explosion only to get oneshotted by it when i accidentally came into contact of one of my thousands of bullets
Yeah, not liking Noita instantly voids their opinion on wizard games imo. It is THE wizard game that truly rewards learning the systems and mechanics.
@@whatisthisayoutubechannel yeah yeah yeah, absolutely, I just think that not all games are everyone's cup of coffee. For example (and I am going a bit off topic) my girlfriend really loved cupheads animations and graphics, but once she learnt that the game is *difficult* all of the enjoyment disappeared. Noita is definitely difficult and frustrating at some times to play, and not everyone has enough "gamer-knowledge" to find the fun in noita. Even I the first time i downloaded it tought that it was waaaaay too difficult
@@gianlukeoni1776 it's weird to say a "majority" of people wouldn't like the lag an "end game" build creates lmao. like 0.1% of the people playing the game would ever get to that point, and by then they probably wouldn't care about the lag. i dont think the wand building is "counter-intuitive", just really hard. but i do agree that certain stuff is *too* hidden. a tutorial (or even just more robust tooltips) would go an incredibly long way
I don't even play any o fthese wizard games but you are such a good and humorous story teller I ended up watching the entire video. Brava!
I played a similar game called Mages of Mystralia. Game just gives you a bunch of elemental spells and then gives you options to connect and customize how those spells interact. I made a spell that had an infinite loop at the cost of my entire mana pool. It was a fun game
Looking at your previous criteria wizard games, would ultrakill be a wizard game if it was magic themed?
I know this a weird one, but what about Elden Ring or any of the Souls Trilogy games. The wizard builds are kinda like a weird deviation of an actually powerful wizard, you are more like an extremely weak and defendless wizard that needs to take constant supplements of mana to activate powerful spells. But idk, in some way, for me its kinda cool.
And in Elden Ring specifically you can throw lightning spears from a horse.
Elden Ring and Souls in general is just throw projectiles of various flavours. You can't really modify them or make them interact save for something like Ranni and Rennala's moons which blocks magic and such.
@Hải Huỳnh I mean, that's kinda true although even tho most of them are different flavour proyectiles they have enough variation on how they work in battle that they do feel different. You have magic swords, a magic rain cast, an explosion proyectile, bubbles, etc. And all of those things have different casting times, range, mana consumption that makes the decision of wich to use a little more nuance.
And when talking about this games specifically, i don't only mean the int builds and spells. To disregard the incantations would be a diservice of the games. Maybe they aren't technically magic but in any other game they would be called spells too.
But besides all that, there are also a lot more magical elements that come in play in the games besides only spells. Summoning spirit ashes for example, that's something a cool necromancer would do.
In terms of wizard games specifically, it obviously fails in comparison with many of the listed ones here, but i do think it does surpass a lot of the proyectiles magic games by a lot.
Magicka 2 is so much fun. I remember struggling in solo when a random expert wizard joined me, dropped his discord and basically held my hand the whole game. Teaching me all kinds of cool spells. 10/10
man i love crosscode but boy is it true that it did not need that much filler
theres a perk that allows you to change your wands on the go, and if you're a normal person, you'll just mod it in so you can always have it from the start of the game